


no place like home

by everytuesday



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Future Fic, Gay Archie Andrews, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e06 Chapter Forty-One: Manhunter, Southside Serpent Jughead Jones, butch lesbian betty cooper
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2019-10-13 05:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17481767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everytuesday/pseuds/everytuesday
Summary: Betty calls. Archie finally goes home.Turns out a lot changed in the last ten years.--OR: AU from the end of 3x06; Archie never went back to Riverdale and instead moved to the west coast, got himself a boyfriend, and maybe started to heal from his traumatic adolescence a little bit... Until Hiram Lodge is arrested and Archie is asked to testify against him. Then things get messy.





	1. Part 0: End of the Road

Archie doesn’t know, as he runs alongside the train, reaching for Jughead’s hand to help pull himself onboard, that these are the last few steps he'll take in Riverdale for a long, long time.

Even as Jughead slides the train car door shut behind them and the last glimpse of Archie’s home disappears behind cold steel, some part of him fantasizes about when he’ll return, storming into Riverdale to watch Hiram Lodge burn at the stake. He’s not sure what “burn at the stake” means as a metaphor (or if it’s even a metaphor at all; surely burning a man alive isn’t the strangest thing to happen in Riverdale these past few years), but however the details work themselves out, it ends the same in every fantasy he has over the next hours and days and weeks: Hiram out of the picture, for good. Archie drives across town, walks into Pop’s and sees Veronica, serving a customer and completely distracted, beautiful and freer than she’s ever been. She turns to him. He runs across the short distance and catches her up in his arms. Fireworks. Victory song playing over head. Jughead and Betty a few booths over, beaming. Roll credits.

Instead it goes like this: Hiram dodges the law, Archie gets lower and lower to the ground, first a few towns over and then a few states over, and each time Hiram sends someone after him. Archie and Jughead don’t stop running until they hit the opposite coast and literally cannot go further.

In a small, rainy town in Oregon, the adulthood they’ve been hurtling toward since Jason Blossom’s death arrives unceremoniously.

Jughead gets a job working at the only motel in town and Archie works at a fast food joint whose burgers will never be as good as Pop’s. They move into a studio apartment in a building that looks the other way on their fake IDs. In the evenings they eat bad takeout and keep track of the group chat with Betty and Veronica when shit hits the fan back home.

It’s normal and weird and goes on until just shy of ten months since they started running, when it finally crashes down around Archie’s head.

“You could finish out school,” Jughead says one day, forcibly casual as he pulls his ugly motel uniform over his head. “The school for the county is practically walking distance. I’m sure your dad would send over your records.”

Archie’s stomach drops to his toes. “What about you?”

Jughead lets a defeated sigh escape as his shoulders slump. He’s gone back and forth to Riverdale every few months, doing his best to keep seeing Betty, hold down the serpents, and generally keep their peers out of trouble (or at least trouble he doesn’t approve of). “We’ve been here awhile now. I don’t think Hiram’s still looking for you; he knows you’re not coming back.”

 _But I could go back_ , Archie thinks. Even now, he’s got a half dozen plans in the back of his mind, and a few of them don’t even end in his getting charged with a homicide. “Are you leaving?”

“Veronica told me I should.”

“What?”

“Veronica. Asked me to leave.”

 _Why would Ronnie?_ “Wait, are you and V--?”

“No! God, no. She’d never--” he thinks a moment, then laughs. “ _I’d_ never. Archie, she wants me to leave because she cares about you.”

Jughead rambles into an overly long word picture of a time half a year ago when Veronica approached him and begged him to leave Archie. When Jughead questioned her on it, the answer had been simple: Archie deserved a clean break. Once he was settled and completely safe, there shouldn’t be anything tying him back to Riverdale. He could start over and never look back.

“This was six months ago?”

“Give or take. Right after we moved here, actually. I just didn’t want to leave. I thought she was wrong.”

“She _is_ wrong! If you have to go back to Riverdale, fine, but don’t do it because of her, don’t do it because it’s ‘what’s best’ for me, or whatever condescending crap the two of you--”

“You don’t have friends here, Archie. You haven’t talked to one person since we moved here for more than five minutes. If I stay, you’ll keep going like this because you don’t want to start over and admit you’re not going back.”

Archie gapes at him.

Jughead pushes on, “You need to be safe and you’re not! Being the weird pariah on the edge of town just means if Hiram ever changes his mind and comes looking, you’re going to be easy to pick out in a crowd.”

“So this is it, you’re leaving?”

“I wanted you to get really settled first. I wanted to make sure you were okay, and then… yeah, I was going to leave. I haven’t even put my two weeks in yet, there’s still some time to get everything settled before I go. Speaking of which--” he glances down at his phone. “I’m already late for work. I’ll talk to you tonight?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

Jughead opens his mouth to say something, but thinks better of it and leaves, yanking the door shut behind him.

Archie finds a spot on their battered couch and starts drafting an angry text to Veronica on his burner phone.

_why did you tell jughead to leave???_

He deletes it and starts over.

_jughead told me you dont want me to come back to riverdale_

Even worse.

_i appreciate the attempt to help, but im coming back to riverdale someday_

He throws the phone across the couch instead of sending anything. He was always going back to Riverdale. Maybe months and months away, but he was going back. He had to, didn’t he?

He thinks of calling Betty, but for all he knew she was in on the plan and would just try to back up Jughead and Veronica. Or he’d put (another) rift between her and Veronica. Or she’d tell him to let Jughead go home to her.

He can imagine too many bad responses to try reaching out to her. So he flips on the tv and starts rummaging through the kitchen for dinner.

It’s a ramen kind of night. As he waits for water to boil, he thinks of Jug and starts rehearsing a rational and mature way to beg him not to leave.

\---

The door opens a little after ten and Jughead stumbles in with an armful of to-go boxes.

“The motel restaurant had a bunch of leftovers tonight,” he says, dumping the boxes onto the kitchen table. “You probably ate but...”

Jughead shoves a handful of french fries from one of the boxes into his mouth while Archie hops up from the couch and starts popping open the others, snagging  a couple bites of room-temperature, motel-quality seafood. It really wasn’t as bad as it sounded, especially since most of Archie’s meals of choice have been variations of noodles and butter.

“Turns out the hotel found a bunch of new hires from the high school kids graduating and they’re fine with my resignation being effective immediately,” Jughead says. “So I’m gonna pack tonight, and I’ll take the first bus back east tomorrow.”

Archie looks up, startled. “What?”

“That was way faster and less gentle than I meant. I just… I thought about it all day, and I don’t want to drag this out. I know you can get the school stuff figured out,” he forces a smile. “You’re smarter than you let on.”

“You bring home leftovers and what, that’s it? You’re gone?”

"You really want me to hang out for a few weeks, knowing I’m leaving?”

“What if I go with you?”

“Then I’ll be burying your body after Hiram sends some goon to riddle it with bullet holes. Or Veronica and Betty will bury us both after I do something stupid trying to save you, assuming Betty hasn’t gotten caught in the crossfire first. And how long do you think V will last after her father murders three of her closest friends?”

“That’s not fair.”

“I have to go. You have to stay. That’s the way it is.”

They keep arguing in circles as Jughead starts to pack. Jug becomes increasingly frantic in throwing things into bags as their voices get louder, until Jughead is standing there with two full suitcases and a duffle bag and his hand on the door. Archie hovers in the entryway, trying to think of anything to say, some last hail Mary.

“I don’t want to leave like this,” Jughead sighs. “But I can’t-- I’ll just sleep at the bus station.”

“Jug, wait--” Archie grabs Jughead’s wrist, dragging him away from the door. He spins around and their faces are suddenly much too close. Archie doesn’t think about what he’s doing, it’s like something is pushing him along toward an inevitability. He leans in and presses his lips against Jughead’s.

It’s a long, weird moment and after a half second of trying to process the emotions and half-formed thoughts racing through, Archie’s brain goes static. He swears Jughead starts to open his mouth, but before he can process _that_ , Jug pushes him hard enough for Archie to stagger backward and almost lose his footing.

“What the hell, dude?” Jughead gasps.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what that--”

Jughead shoulders Archie aside and fumbles for the door. “I’m sorry, Archie. I have to go.”

The door slams shut. Archie sinks to the floor where he’s at and starts to cry.

\---

He doesn’t hear from anyone in Riverdale (outside of a quick text reading “he’s back safe” from Betty) for another eight months. At 4am on a very early June morning (or perhaps a very late night), an unknown number texts him a picture.

Betty and Veronica wear matching blue graduation gowns, grinning and holding up diplomas. Betty’s hair is cut short and barely reaches her chin now. Veronica has a streak of pink in her dark curls and what Archie swears is a nose ring, if he squints at it long enough. Jug’s probably taking the photo, he would have had to repeat junior year anyway after missing most of it to go on the run. A few of his other classmates appear in the crowd of people in the background. Definitely Cheryl, her signature red hair giving her away as she poses for a different photo with three girls who have cat ears affixed to their caps. They all look happy. Normal.  
  
There’s a follow up text that says “miss you!”  
  
Archie doesn’t text back, but he smiles for a long time.  
  
It’s the last text he gets from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will be a 10 year hop into the future and it's already saved to as a draft on ao3 (i just want to make sure i dont mess up any continuity as im writing later chapters). should have it up soon!


	2. Part 1: Here & Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Archie Loves Nate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i may have possibly maybe stolen archie's boyfriend's name from archie's weird fantasy. maybe.
> 
> (he's not a serial killer in this one though i promise)

Archie can’t sleep. Maybe it's the new bed or the too-loudness of the city outside his apartment. Or the nightmare he just woke from.

The point is, he’s awake and agitated.

He gets up a few times to pace around the kitchen, testing the slipperiness of the linoleum against his socks. He tries to read but just goes over the same paragraph five times before giving up. He turns the TV on, muted with subtitles, but can't concentrate. Even taking Jack for a run doesn’t calm him down, and Jack seems very annoyed at being woken up in the middle of the night because when they get back he goes right back to his dog bed and starts snoring his deep, growly snores in a matter of seconds.

Archie sneaks back into his own bed, trying not to wake up his also-snoring boyfriend. _Trying_ being the key factor in the equation. Nate opens a sleepy eye at him as soon as he’s under the covers. He rolls closer to Archie and mumbles, “G'morn'n,” against his shoulder.

“It’s 4am, go back to sleep,” Archie whispers. He closes his eyes, hoping Nate will be too tired to remember this in the morning.

“Why are _you_ awake at 4?” Nate sounds too coherent. This isn’t going to end well.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Archie feels the bed shift slightly as Nate sits up and peers over him. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Archie opens his eyes to meet Nate’s dark brown ones. “Have I ever?”

"Okay."

Nate leans down and kisses him, long and deep. Archie feels his heart stop racing, lets his whole mess of paranoia drift away for a few moments until it’s just the two of them, safe in their bed. Nate's weight over him is warm and reassuring and Archie runs his hands through Nate's dark curls. Nate’s hand traces down his side until his fingertips brush over the brand on his hip.

" _Stopstopstop!_ " Archie cries out in a panic, full-body flinching and writhing away from Nate. Nate's weight disappears as he pushes himself to the opposite side of the bed, holding his hands up where Archie can see them.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. You're okay."

Archie nods, swallowing hard and taking a few shaky breaths. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

“Hey, you're fine,” Nate tentatively reaches to take his hand, rubbing his thumb over Archie’s knuckles. “I just don't want to hurt you. But it’s kind of hard when you don’t tell me _anything_.”

“It’s just crappy adolescent trauma. You don’t want to know.”

“And here I thought it was all an embarrassing bar story.”

“Shut up,” Archie kicks him under the covers. Nate smiles, but his eyes are locked on his, expecting an answer, and Archie has to look away. He fixates instead on the popcorn ceiling, making pictures out of the textured swirls. A dancer, a dog, Mickey Mouse ears...

“I just want you to feel safe, Arch.”

“Okay.” Feeling safe ever again is an unreachable goal, but after knowing Nate for two years, Archie feels he owes him some sort of explanation for the idiosyncrasies. Why he wakes up shouting in the middle of the night, why he’ll go days at a time without wanting anyone to touch him, why he balks when he sees dark haired men in suits, why he jumps at loud noises (especially fireworks), why no one has ever met his parents. “Okay, give me a second.”

He sits up against the headboard, collecting his thoughts. There’s too much and half of it doesn’t even make sense, but maybe he can say something.

He pulls Nate’s hand up against the brand in his hip and even though the touch makes him want to crawl out of his skin, he leans into it.

“It wasn’t an accident,” he says carefully. “Or a goofy bar fight.”

He lets the story out, bit by bit. Some of it gets too complicated, so he leaves parts out. Joaquin is absent entirely, because Archie still doesn’t know how he feels about the long-dead teenager who kissed him and then nearly killed him. Boiled down, there’s not much left, but all the key elements remain: Veronica, Hiram, framejob, prison, fight club, branding, escaping, running.

Nate listens, his face irritatingly neutral the whole time. When Archie finishes with Jughead leaving back to Riverdale (he leaves out _that_ kiss too), Archie’s leg jitters up and down and his knuckles have gone as white as the sheets bunched up in his fist. “I went back to school, managed a scholarship to college up here, and then I met you. And that’s... most of it.”

He waits for a reaction, staring Nate down, mentally begging him not to start crying.

Instead, Nate _laughs._ Archie’s eyes widen in horror, wondering what he said wrong to make his teenage years sound funny instead of the shit-show they actually were.

“Sorry!” Nate coughs, stifling his laughter. “It’s horrible, I’m sorry, that was an involuntary reaction. Jesus, I’m so sorry.”

 _Oh._ Archie lets himself breathe again. “I mean-- That’s fine. I think. You’re the first person I’ve ever told about most of that.”

“Thank you for trusting me,” Nate collects himself, sincere now. “And I’m sorry. And I won’t ask you anymore about it, even though I know you’re telling me everything. And I’m sorry for laughing.”

“It is kind of so horrible it’s funny,” Archie allows, feeling the start of a smile forming on his lips.

“Being branded in prison at sixteen is _really_ fucking dark. I’m sure your therapist told you this, but it’s fucked up and shouldn’t have happened to you.”

Archie snorts. “Thanks.”

“Can you sleep now?”

“Definitely not.”

“Okay,” Nate thinks for a moment, then sits up. “You wanna play video games until you have to go to work in, uhh,” he glances over at the clock, “Three hours?”

Nate crawls out of bed, pulling Archie along with him to their living room. They order pancakes from the 24-hour diner around the corner and Archie destroys Nate in Mortal Kombat until Nate makes them switch to Mario Kart, where they both know he can kick Archie’s ass.

By the time Archie leaves for work, his heart feels back to a normal human rate and he can actually concentrate enough to drive. Nate kisses him goodbye at the door and that’s that.

\---

When Archie gets home after a grueling day of wrong orders and cranky middle aged women butchering the pronunciation of espresso, Nate catches him the moment he enters the apartment, a huge, goofy grin across his face. He kisses him, then spins him around and pushes him toward the kitchen before Archie has time to ask what’s happening.

On the kitchen table is a pink box, which Nate opens to display a small cake with red frosting flowers decorating the edges. Between the flowers, blue cursive writing reads:

_‘sorry about your f*cked up childhood :(’_

Archie chokes on a laugh.

“The lady at the bakery thought I was being morbid.”

“You are so--” Archie struggles for words.

“Whatever you were going to say, yes,” Nate nods. “Absolutely. I’m the worst.”

“This is really sweet,” Archie says, then adds teasingly, “I _think_.”

Nate kisses Archie again, longer this time and a little more forceful and in a matter of moments, Archie finds himself backed up against their pantry door with Nate kissing marks into his neck. Archie is still fighting off laughter and between kisses Nate mutters for him to shut up.

Archie opens his mouth for the classic, “Make me” but before he can say anything there’s a loud chirp accompanied by a buzz that startles them both. The chirping and buzzing continue and Archie disentangles himself from Nate to start rifling through drawers.

He _knows_ that sound. It’s the sound he’s been waiting for all these years.

The ancient prepaid phone is buried in a box in the junk drawer, though it's always fully charged and ready. Nate gives him a questioning look, but Archie can’t collect his thoughts enough to explain, so he just answers, “Hello?”

“Hey, Arch. It’s so good to hear your voice.”

“Betty,” Archie breathes. She sounds the same and he’d know her a lifetime apart. The momentary warmth in his chest vanishes and panic sets in. “What’s wrong? Is everyone okay?”

“Everything’s great, actually. Hiram’s going to trial. Riverdale’s new, semi-competent sheriff finally got enough evidence together to indict him.”

“What?” Archie has to steady himself against the kitchen counter. Nate shoots him a concerned look.

“I just got back into town a week ago, right after he was arrested. I didn't think it'd actually stick, but I wanted to be here for Veronica. And then... He's actually going to trial and he could be in prison for good. And they’re going to want you as a witness.”

“Me? What for? That was-- That was ten years ago, Bets. I can’t drop everything, I can’t--”

“I know, I know. That’s why I’m calling, to give you the heads up if you want to get out of dodge before they start looking for you. Or you could come home. If this goes in our favor, you could stop running altogether. No more looking over your shoulder. You'd be free.”

“I have to think--”

“You probably have a day, max. Things are moving fast. If you need anything, I'm here.”

They exchange their real numbers and emails. Betty promises to send him what information she can before they hang up. Archie slides the phone back into the drawer, then looks up to meet Nate’s eyes.

“Are you going back?”

“I think I have to. They got Hiram, if I go and testify against him--”

There’s a beat, and then Nate says the worst possible four words, “I’ll go with you.”

“ _Hell no_.”

“Archie, come on. You don’t really want to go back there alone.”

“I’ll have Betty,” Archie says. “She knows Riverdale and everything that goes down there. You’d be walking into a death trap.”

“I know about the teenage fight clubs in prison, but it’s just a small town. How bad can it be? What’s your worst-case scenario if I come with you?”

“You die.”

“I’m not gonna _die._ ”

“There are hitmen and goblin kings and--”

“David Bowie is alive and living in Riverdale?” Nate snarks and Archie glowers at him. Nate, however, is undeterred. “I’ll pay for the plane tickets and we’ll be joined at the hip the whole time. I won’t go wandering off into a cult sacrifice or a serial killer’s lair or whatever horrible thing happens in Riverdale.”

“You say that like it’s a joke, but my dad was shot by a serial killer and we’ve had _multiple_ cults.”

“Okay, okay,” Nate holds up his hands in surrender. “No more jokes. I want to go with you.”

Archie gives up too, though his stomach starts tying itself in knots at the thought of Nate in Riverdale. “Don’t go wandering off without me. Don’t even _think_ about going to the southside. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t tell anyone who you are. Just stay safe, please. I don’t want Riverdale take everything from me all over again.”

“I promise.”

It’s not a promise Nate will be able to keep, no matter how hard he tries. Where Archie goes in Riverdale, trouble tends to follow. As they start make plans, some part of Archie wants to handcuff Nate to the radiator and take off without him, and the fact that thought even crosses his mind just proves Riverdale is ruining everything again. He had barely five minutes of normal he loved: a minimum wage serving job in a coffee bar that lets him sing there every other Thursday night, a big fluffy dog that made missing Vegas less painful, and a barebones apartment he shares with someone who can make him laugh enough to forget even the darkest moments of his adolescence for a few minutes. And now Betty’s call puts it all on thin ice.

When he calls in to work request a few days off work for a family emergency, he wonders if he’ll ever go back to this normal life, or if Riverdale will trap him forever this time.


	3. Part 1: Reunion Special

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The start of a homecoming.

 

A cheerful voice announces the plane’s descent and Nate slips his hand into Archie’s, casually, but Archie tethers himself to reality with it. Every step he’s taken so far today has felt wrong, like he’s willingly headed to his own execution. His teenage fantasies of  a triumphant return to Riverdale fall apart in the face of the real thing.

The plane dips toward the ground and he squeezes Nate’s hand and starts counting his breaths. One two three four, _breathe_ , one two three four, _breathe_ , one two three four, _breathe_ , one two three--

“You said Betty was picking us up?”

Archie nods, coming back to reality and realizing they’re off the plane and at baggage claim. Nate scans the carousel for their luggage and Archie pulls together long enough to look for a blonde ponytail in the crowd of people bustling in and out of the airport.

He hasn’t seen a picture of Betty since the graduation photo and for all he knows she never grew her hair out and it’s still short, or maybe dyed a different color. She could be anyone in the crowd.

Just as he starts to reach for his phone, someone calls out, “Archie!”

He turns, gets caught up in a hug, and knows it’s _her_. He’s the boy next door and she’s the girl next door — that much will never change, even if they were all wrong for each other. Betty shakes a little in his arms and presses her face into his shoulder. He hangs on tight and struggles to recall the last time he hugged her or the last time they were together. He can’t remember; he hadn’t known it was a goodbye back then.

When they finally let go and step back, Archie has to blink a few times to make sure who he’s seeing is really Betty.

She’s still a half foot shorter than him, but just about every other detail has changed. Her hair is cropped short and the sides are shaved. Gone is the lipstick and mascara of her teenage years; a forgotten smudge of grease above her eyebrow is the only thing decorating her face. The ragged jeans and flannel remind him more of how Jughead used to dress than Riverdale’s Nancy Drew.

“Wow. You look great, Bets,” Archie ruffles her short hair.

“I know, very different,” she says, with a tone that suggests it doesn’t really matter what Archie thinks anyway.

Nate clears his throat, “You must be--”

Betty cuts Nate off by dragging him into a hug before he can protest. Nate’s hands hover in the air for a moment before he settles on patting her back.

“Sorry,” Betty laughs as she pulls back. “I’m not usually this much of a hugger, it’s just been a weird few days.”

Nate backs away from Betty and takes Archie’s hand, as if Archie has any hope of protecting him from Betty Fucking Cooper.

“My truck’s right outside, ”Betty says, snagging one of their duffle bags from Nate.  “Which reminds me,” she calls over her shoulder as she heads for the door, “I’m gay. But you probably figured that out from the clothes and the hair and my whole… everything.”

“Me too,” Archie says. “But you probably figured that out when I said I was bringing my boyfriend.”

She laughs, grinning and meeting Archie’s eyes for a moment before continuing towards the car. Nate tosses their bags into the truck bed and they all squeeze in the front seat, Archie sandwiched between Betty and Nate. The truck wheezes to life and they’re on the road.

The three of them laugh easily on the drive back, as Betty makes jokes about her long-gone crush on Archie and how inherently funny it is that they both wound up being gay. Nate regales Betty with embarrassing stories about Archie, and Archie counters with equally embarrassing stories about teen detective Betty. Despite the hour it takes them to get to town, when they pass by the “Welcome to Riverdale” sign, Archie feels like they’ve hardly had a chance to talk at all.

“‘The Town with Pep?’” Nate asks.

“More like the town with perps,” Betty says cheerfully. “But yeah, that’s our official slogan. It’s like we want to be as Stepford as possible.”

She pulls them into a familiar neighborhood and Archie doesn’t even think to look at Betty’s old house; his eyes are immediately drawn to the one next door, unchanged in the last decade.

“Fred moved years ago,” Betty answers his unspoken question. “He lives in an apartment in the Southside now.”

“ _My_ _dad_ lives on the Southside?”

“He and FP were living together for awhile after you left. Until--” she stops herself. The pause hangs heavy in the air before Betty sighs. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to get into this part already. FP was killed three years ago, in a shooting. No one ever figured out who did it, but everyone took it really hard. Fred’s doing better now, though.”

Archie can’t picture a Riverdale without FP Jones lurking somewhere in the shadows or keeping a watchful eye out on the Southside. Jughead must have been crushed.

“Jug still in town?” Archie tries to sound casual as he climbs out of Betty’s truck and heads for the house.

Betty nods and Archie’s grateful she doesn’t say more. He’s not quite ready for that yet, especially not after news of FP’s passing.

Betty unlocks the front door and swings it open for them.

“Elizabeth, is that you?”

Alice Cooper appears and Archie steels himself for a string of accusations, a “get the hell out of my house,” or any of the usual responses Alice has to his presence.

“Welcome home, Archie,” she offers instead, and Archie thinks he might cry.

Betty’s phone rings and she excuses herself outside to answer it.

“Thanks, Mrs. Cooper,” he tries to hide the wobble in his voice.

“You’re an adult now; call me Alice,” she says, then spots Nate and gets that nosy, reporter look in her eye. “Betty said you were bringing a ‘partner’ and I wondered if she meant--”

“Actually!” Archie grabs Nate’s arm. “We’re going to get settled in. Thank you for your hospitality, Alice.”

He drags Nate up the stairs. Betty is staying in the room that used to be Polly's (she apparently converted it into a reporter’s office during the week she’s been back since Hiram’s initial arrest), which puts Archie and Nate in Betty’s old room.

There is almost no sign teenage Betty Cooper ever lived here. No posters, no pictures of friends, no precariously stacked pile of books. Just plain white walls, a soft blue comforter on the bed, and a wooden desk.

Archie drops his bags on the floor and sits on the edge of the bed, letting out a breath he’s been holding the last twenty minutes of driving through town.

“So we don’t like Alice, I take it?” Nate sits next to him on the bed.

Archie tilts his head, then tries to summarize it the best he can. “When I was fifteen, she found out my music teacher was sleeping with me and she tried to get _me_ in trouble for it. Also, yes, I know, I slept with my music teacher. Welcome to Riverdale, where that was probably the most normal ‘bad’ thing that happened to me.”

“God, I hate this town already.”

“And you haven’t met any of the gangs yet.”

Betty swings open the door, unannounced. “Hey! Sorry, I’ll knock next time, but I’m making a run to the bus station to pick up Kevin and Reggie. I’m gonna grab pizza and beer on the way back and if you’re up for it we’ll have a little mini reunion?”

“Anyone else coming?” Archie thinks over the list of names of people he actively doesn’t want to see yet, if at all.

“They’re the only ones coming in from out of town,” Betty says. “Josie would come back here over her dead body and everyone else is already here. And the locals aren’t invited tonight.”

“Okay. Yeah, I’ll be there.”

Betty gives him a thumbs up and slips back out the door.

“Was that as in Kevin-and-Reggie together or Kevin and Reggie separate entities?” Nate asks.

“Reggie is football captain straight and Kevin was the only out gay guy in school, or at least he was when I left.”

“‘Football captain straight’ tells me nothing, Archie. _I_ was a football captain.”

Well _that’s_ new information. “No way! You were a nerd; you got straight A’s and a liberal arts degree. I can’t be dating a _jock_.”

“How did you think I paid for that nerdy liberal arts degree?”

Archie and Nate dare to migrate back downstairs around twenty minutes later to set up for Betty’s four-person high school reunion. Alice either left the house or is busy in an office somewhere, because she doesn’t ever appear to bother them or question Nate about Archie.

Nate always excelled at events on a budget and manages to make Betty’s living room actually look like a party might happen there, hanging up some old Christmas lights across the ceiling and shifting some furniture around to make space for a coffee table and then scattering a few cushions around it.

Archie watches Nate work from the floor, texting with a few friends from back west and reassuring them of his sanity despite appearing to go back to his hometown for a week on a whim.

“Is that Alex?” Nate asks after Archie makes a particularly annoyed face at his phone. “Tell him to mind his own business. And to take Jack for an extra walk.”

“He’s just worried.”

“Did you tell him I went with you?”

“He says you’re, and I’m quoting directly, ‘not a good judge of sanity.’”

“Okay but that’s like, _my job_?”

“And that’s why I made that face.”

“Oh my god,” Betty stands in the doorway, eyes alight as she takes in the room. “You actually made it a party.”

Kevin and Reggie peer over her shoulders, more or less the same since high school. Kevin spots Nate and then looks at Archie, then back and forth a few times before turning to Betty.

“ _Partner_?” Kevin stage-whispers. “Betty, you know that I have waited and waited for the day--”

“Hey Kevin,” Archie waves, ignoring Nate heavily side-eyeing him. _God_ he hates Riverdale.

“Some things never change, Andrews,” Reggie rolls his eyes. “Kevin being one of them.”

Reggie steps around Betty to offer Archie a hand up from the floor that turns into an awkward bro-hug.

“Hey guys, this is my boyfriend, Nate,” Archie gestures. “Nate, Kevin and Reggie.”

Kevin jumps forward to shake Nate’s hand, while Reggie offers him a nod.

“Which one’s the football captain and which one’s gay?” Nate asks, positively chipper, and Archie elbows him.

“I like him,” Kevin says, grinning. “I’m the gay one.”

Betty hands the pizza boxes off to Nate and they settle around the coffee table on the floor. Conversation stutters along. Reggie lives twenty minutes outside of Boston and Kevin lives in New York, not far from Josie. The two have apparently become something like siblings since their parents’ marriage.  Josie’s career has been steady, though not the superstardom she dreamed of as a teenager, while Kevin’s glamorous life consists of sharing a two bedroom apartment with four other roommates. They chatter about jobs and college and Archie keeps bragging about Nate finishing out his last year of school and getting his counseling certification.

As that conversation fades out, Kevin clears his throat. “Okay, I’ve waited long enough. I have to bring it up,” he turns to Nate, gleeful, “You’re the man who finally got Archie Andrews out of the closet.”

“He was kicking and screaming the whole way,” Nate says faux-wistfully.

Archie elbows him again. “I was already out when Nate and I met.”

“That’s _how_ we met, actually. Bunch of mutual friends set us up as roommates hoping we’d wind up making each other less insufferable.”

“And it worked.”

“Archie was the angsty loner of the friend group and I’ve always been obnoxiously outgoing, and we were the only two who never wanted to get into the bar scene. I think it was like halfway just to relieve themselves of the guilt when they ran off without us. Anyway they kept trying to set us up on dates and when my roommate bailed to Florida at the same time Archie needed a place... ”

“So you have a circle entirely of gay friends and they hooked you two up?” Kevin asks. “God, Archie, you’re living the dream. Wait, so when did you come out?”

“Actually, I want to know that too,” Betty leans in, eager to hear.

“I was out in high school when I re-enrolled. It was still shitty, cause it was a small town, but yeah. I was out at like seventeen.”

“Wait-- wait. You knew that soon?” Kevin frowns. “Why didn’t you tell us back in Riverdale? You could’ve saved me so much grief. You know how stressful being the only out gay kid is?” -- Archie does, in fact, know-- “My dad would’ve finally been off my back. We could’ve awkwardly gone to homecoming together.”

“I didn’t know in Riverdale,” Archie says carefully.

“Then when--?” Kevin’s eyes go wide as the timeline falls into place. “Oh. _Oh._ Shit.”

Betty squints at him a second, before her jaw drops as she catches on with where Kevin’s mind has gone. “We weren’t even broken up yet though. Not that I care, I just-- He _was_ weird when he got back, but I thought--”

“What are they talking about?” Nate whispers.

Reggie shrugs helplessly and Archie becomes incredibly interested in an empty pizza box, wishing Betty and Kevin would just shut the hell up already.

“Wait, what exactly happened between you and Jughead?” Kevin asks.

“Fuck, I knew it!” Reggie slams his fist on the table in victory. “Chuck owes me fifty bucks.”

Archie closes his eyes. “If you care that much, then yeah, I kissed Jughead. He didn’t kiss me back, he just walked out and I never saw him again. That’s my big coming out moment. No juicy gossip, just some teen angst.”

Archie gets up and beelines for Betty’s old bedroom. He expects Nate to follow him, but he doesn’t, and Archie’s grateful for the chance to just be on his own for a few minutes. He breathes, tells himself it doesn't matter and they would've found out about what happened with Jughead at some point anyway. Better to rip that bandaid off now.

Nate does comes in after a bit, knocking on the door frame as he enters. “How are you doing?”

“I’m sorry, this is weird,” Archie mutters. “I should’ve known Kevin was going to say something and told Betty not to--”

“The first guy I kissed was in college when I was blackout drunk,” Nate says. “I wouldn’t know it happened if my girlfriend at the time hadn’t taken pictures to tease me about later. It’s not quite as bad, but… not everyone has a great revelatory moment.”

“Thanks.”

Nate pecks him on the lips. “I’m gonna go downstairs again and try to bait Kevin into hitting on Reggie because I need to know the meaning of ‘football captain straight.’ You wanna watch or you wanna stay up here and sleep off the drama?”

“Kevin’s not gonna hit on Reggie.”

“Fifty bucks?”

Archie throws a pillow across the room at him and Nate ducks back out into the hall, trailing laughter as he heads back downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about FP :( I promise there's a point to it and it wasn't just for the angst factor.
> 
> next up: a reunion with Fred and the core four finally all together.


	4. Part 1: All is OK With Milkshakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you okay?”
> 
> “Of course not. I’m about to see my high school boyfriend for the first time since I shaved my hair and started shopping in the men’s section for all my clothes. Not to mention...” she shakes her head, banishing whatever thought she had. “You ever think about how all four of us have kissed each other? It’s too bad you and I are gay and they’re both straight instead of us all being bi and polyamorous because then the whole thing would’ve really resolved itself quite nicely.”

Archie knows he’s running late. Even though the plan itself had come together last minute, he’s had more than enough time to get ready. Betty’s first and second attempts to get him moving were calm, but she’s getting testy now, clearly, because this time she pushes Nate in ahead of her. He’s a whole head and a half taller than her and she can’t get her head over his shoulder even on her tip-toes, so she ducks under his arm and waves at Archie from the doorway.

"Seriously, Arch, you gotta go.” 

Archie stays rooted to the spot in front of the mirror, running a hand through his hair again, trying to remember the exact way it spiked up in high school, the way he smiled back then, whether he buttoned his flannel or let it hang open. The same things he’s been obsessing over the past thirty minutes.

“Archie,” Nate calls, softly. “Come on, you’re good.”

Archie fusses with his hair one last time before following Betty and Nate downstairs. They tip-toe through the living room, where Kevin and Reggie still sleep, sprawled out across the couches, and out the front door.

Riverdale never has heavy traffic, but just after six on a Saturday morning, it’s even quieter than usual. Archie would have been fine sitting in silence the whole ride to the Southside. Nate and Betty are chatty though, and Nate starts off about how the romanticization of small towns is growing more horrifying every minute he’s in Riverdale and Betty happily offers more gruesome details to build Nate’s case. Archie is uncertain if he’s happy with how well they seem to be getting along.

They drive up alongside a newer building that Archie doesn’t remember from his own days in Riverdale. He gets out and takes a few steps toward the apartments, then turns around and motions for Betty to roll down her window. She does so, and he leans into the car.

“Don’t lose him,” Archie instructs,  jabbing a finger in Nate’s direction. “Seriously, don’t even let him leave the house.”

“You’re rightfully paranoid, but I think--” Betty starts, before Nate cuts her off.

“Just go hug him already, you coward.”

Archie forces himself away from the truck and back toward the apartment building.

The door to the main level is accessible even without a key, so he just walks into the cozy entrance hall and finds his way to a stairwell. He jogs up the three flights rather than take the elevator, hoping the movement will get out some of his nerves.

The entrance to apartment #315 is an unassuming door at the tail end of a dimly-lit hallway, and it flies open on his first knock. Fred Andrews stands in the doorway.

“ _Dad_.”

Archie takes in the last ten years on Fred’s face and wishes more than ever that he’d never left. He lets himself stumble forward into his dad’s open arms and as Fred pulls him closer, Archie starts crying. Fred murmurs something into his ear that Archie doesn’t catch, but it’s warm and comforting and Archie thinks he might never let go of his dad again.

They stand like that for a long time, before Fred invites Archie inside and they sit down at Fred’s already-set kitchen table. Fred passes a giant stack of pancakes over to Archie, followed by a plate of bacon. It smells like weekends, and also those rare mornings when they’d both get up at 5am in the middle of the week,decide _why the hell not?_ and make a ridiculous big breakfast before work and school.

“So how are you? How have things gone? How...?” _Who are you now?_ Fred seems too afraid to ask.

“I went to college,” Archie says the first thing that springs to mind. “Scholarships and everything.”

“What’d you major in?”

There’s another universe where Archie called his dad every Saturday while at school, angsting over what major to pick and what classes to take the next semester. In that universe, Fred told him to go with his gut, and maybe Archie majored in music or business, but it wouldn’t have mattered because whatever he chose he’d have known Fred was going to be there for him, cheering him on.

Instead, Archie says, “Political science. Accidentally. I kept changing my mind and then realized that was the only thing I had the credits for. Thought about being a lawyer like mom, if I ever decide to go back to school, but right now I’m just working at a coffee shop and playing gigs when I can.”

“You still play,” Fred’s face lights up. “Good! Good, I’m glad you stuck with it.”

Archie shrugs, feeling oddly bashful, which in itself feels strange because he usually brags any chance he can get about his music and this is his dad, yet somehow he can’t--  

“Anyone special in your life?” Fred asks, forcibly casual.

In that other universe, Archie came out to Fred the summer before senior year and Fred hugged him and told him he loved him and was so proud of him. Maybe Archie still kissed Jughead and it ended in slamming doors again. Maybe it was Kevin and they went to senior prom together and Fred and Tom took too many pictures, trying to be supportive in their awkward straight parent way.

“I’m gay, Dad” Archie says here, now, in a matter of fact way because he’s twenty-six and he’s lived his life out of the closet for the last ten years, so it feels rather odd that it even needs saying.

“Oh,” Fred says. “Oh, I’m-- I mean that’s--”

“And my boyfriend’s name is Nate. He’s staying at Betty’s with me.”

“Can I meet him?” Fred asks, then quickly backtracks. “I just mean, I’d love to hear more about him. And you and your life. Anything you want to tell me.”

“If you want to drop me off at Betty’s, he should be there. You can meet him,” Archie says, then switches to what he hopes will be a safer topic. “I have a dog too, back home. His name is Jack, he’s this big dumb St Bernard mix I got a few years ago for my-- He’s a therapy dog.”

“You’re in therapy,” Fred’s voice is soft, but Archie hears the concern anyway.

“I was for awhile, yeah. Some of the stuff that happened to me in Riverdale was pretty traumatic, I guess. I’m doing better now though.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” Fred says. “I should’ve looked.”

“Hiram would’ve followed you.”

“Then I should’ve stopped him from hurting you in the first place.”

“Dad--”

“I’ve thought about this a lot, Archie. I’m so sorry I didn’t stop him. And I’m sorry I didn’t protect you.”

“No one could’ve stopped him,” Archie says. “You staying here kept me safe.”

“You shouldn’t have had to--”

“It happened, okay?” Archie snaps, harsher than he means. “I left and this is what happened and it’s my life and I can’t-- You can’t apologize to me, Dad. I spent so much time wanting to come back. I bought a half dozen bus tickets, even got as far as New Mexico one time, before I realized I couldn’t come back. What happened, happened. And I like my life and if I keep thinking about everything I missed here, I’ll never get out of that hole.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Archie says. “It’s not.”

Fred looks away. They sit in silence for a long minute, Fred quietly picking at his food while Archie lets his gaze wander through the apartment. There’s a door to his left that he can see leads to a bathroom and a door across the living room that seems to be a bedroom. The couch is beat up and worn in, the coffee table is a bit chipped. It feels lived-in. There’s even photos on the walls, of Archie and Fred, but also some of the Jones family.

“So you and FP lived here together?” Archie asks.

“For awhile, yeah. I sold the house a couple years after you left. Didn’t make sense for me to live there on my own. FP was leaving the trailer and we wound up here.”

In a one bedroom apartment. _Huh_. Archie wants to ask about that, but he decides he’ll leave that for his dad to bring up on his own time.

Two hours later, Fred and Archie walk into the Cooper’s house to find Nate and Betty sitting at the kitchen table across from Reggie and Kevin, all four engrossed a card game. Betty perks up when they enter.

“Is that _Betty Cooper_?”

Betty offers Fred a hug. “It’s good to see you.”

Kevin and Reggie both get up to greet Fred and Archie steps over to Nate. Nate is a deer in the headlights, staring at Fred in a panic. Archie catches his hand and tugs him over to introduce them.

“Dad, this is my boyfriend, Nate.”

Fred holds out his hand. Nate casts a quick glance Archie’s way, then reaches out and shakes it. “Mr. Andrews, I--”

“Fred,” he corrects.

“I know you missed a lot, and I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you this, but your son is--” he glances at Archie. “He’s the kindest, bravest person I’ve ever met. You should be so proud.”

Fred’s eyes are getting watery again as he smiles at Nate and then goes in for a hug. “Thank you.”

Archie wonders if this is going to turn into everyone standing in a circle and crying, but Betty saves the day.

“Have you been asked to testify in the trial?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Fred says. “I think half the town has.”

“Mom and I actually aren’t on the list,” Betty says. “We were more involved with the whole farm cult thing” ( _There was a cult?_ Archie almosts asks before he decides he doesn’t want to know) “when the worst of Hiram’s bullshit was happening.”

“I’m meeting with the prosecutors on Monday afternoon,” Archie says. “Are you meeting with them ahead of time or...?”

“Monday afternoon, too,” Fred says. “I could always take you, if you wanted. Be some extra support.”

“Thanks, Dad. I’d like that.”

They say their temporary goodbyes and Archie promises to stop by again the next day. Betty stands on the porch with Archie as they watch Fred’s car disappear down the road. She puts a firm hand on his shoulder.

“I know you just did a pretty intense reunion,” she says. “And if you say no, that’s totally fine. But I can’t put off seeing Veronica and Jughead any longer. I’ve been avoiding them for a week and Veronica is sending me a string of angry texts. We’re getting together later tonight. I said I’d meet them both at Pop’s around eight.”

“I’ll go with you,” Archie says. “I don’t think I can put it off either.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Betty says meaningfully. “Thank you, Archie.”

The rest of the afternoon is spent avoiding their impending doom and instead finding things to do with Nate, Reggie, and Kevin that don’t involve any of them running into anyone they might know. Archie’s grateful Reggie and Kevin seem to be of the same mind as him about that —it makes bunkering down at the Cooper’s more bearable.

Nate mentions in passing that Archie is a good DM if they wanted to do a quick D&D session, which earns loud and intense “no”s from the others. Riverdale had apparently ruined something as innocent as Dungeons and Dragons during junior year.

Instead, they play a four hour game of monopoly, which ends with Reggie declaring himself champion and Kevin tackling him to the floor.

When the time rolls around, Archie and Betty once again depart from the Cooper’s house. Riverdale is starting to feel more familiar now, especially this particular route from the quiet suburb to the glowing neon lights of Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe.

Betty keeps shifting her hands on the steering wheel, tapping her fingers in an anxious pattern, head bobbing slightly like she’s psyching herself up for something.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course not. I’m about to see my high school boyfriend for the first time since I shaved my hair and started shopping in the men’s section for all my clothes. Not to mention...” she shakes her head, banishing whatever thought she had. “You ever think about how all four of us have kissed each other? It’s too bad you and I are gay and they’re both straight instead of us all being bi and polyamorous because then the whole thing would’ve really resolved itself quite nicely.”

“So you definitely has a crush on Veronica in high school.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You kinda implied it. And I’m pretty sure she had a crush on you when she first moved here. I know we dated, but she seemed kind of obsessed with you at first.”

“Stop being a dick.” Betty’s cheeks have gone a deep shade of red.

“I’m just saying… Now’s the perfect time to rekindle the spark. Ignite the flame of-- I don’t know. Just flirt a little. Woo her with your butch charm,” Archie says. Betty laughs a high and unnatural giggle at that and Archie puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s gonna be fine.”

They find a spot to park and climb out of the car. Archie grabs Betty’s hand gives it a squeeze as they walk inside.

His heart skips a beat like he’s a dumbass sixteen year old again when he sees Jughead, sitting in the back of the diner with a cup of coffee.  Jug has aged a lot, Archie notices immediately. He still wears his trademark hat, but there are scars on his arms and face, a darkness in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

He hesitates when he sees them, but he gets up and walks over to greet them anyway. Betty holds out her hand like she’s going for a handshake. Just as Jughead starts to take it, Betty seems to realize how weird that is and forces him into the most awkward hug Archie’s ever seen. If he wasn’t so preoccupied with his own teenage hormones rising from the grave, he’d have laughed out loud.

“You look… good,” Betty says awkwardly, because there’s no way she means it.

Jug snorts. “Thanks. Uhh…”

He looks over at Archie, uncertain. Archie freezes up and his mind keeps bringing up the kiss and Jughead slamming the door behind him on a loop.

So they nod like douches and keep their distance while Betty stands between them like she didn’t make out with both of them in high school.

The door chimes to save them from the horrific moment and Veronica Lodge floats into the diner. She wears her Pop’s uniform, her hair is done up in a messy bun, and there are lines around her eyes suggesting she hasn’t been sleeping much. Somehow she’s even more graceful and poised than she was in high school when she wore earls and designer dresses.

“Sorry I’m late, I just got back from dropping off a last minute delivery,” she steps inside and drops her purse on the counter, then seems to fully take in the three of them. Her face breaks into a grin and she rushes across the tiny space, launching herself past Archie, into Betty’s arms. “Oh my god, I’ve missed you so much!”

“I’ve missed you too,” Betty stares over Veronica’s shoulder at Archie, and he grins encouragingly.

Veronica beams at Betty. “Your hair looks so good! You really went for the full Ellen.”

“Is that… is that a gay joke?” Betty squints.

“I-- Well, I mean-- I just assumed…”

“Correctly,” Archie says over Veronica’s shoulder, winking at Betty and giving her a thumbs up.

“Oh thank god,” Veronica gasps. “I’m sorry, I feel like I’m doing this weird.”

Archie laughs and Veronica turns to him, a wry smile on her face. “Hey you.”

In a lot of ways, this is the reunion Archie pictured. They’re in Pop’s. Betty and Jughead are there. Hiram is behind bars, unable to hurt anyone right now. But when he hugs Veronica, everything has changed. It’s close, intimate in some ways, but there’s no spark, no rush of strange emotions he once felt. She hugs him and his heart just beats a steady rhythm of safety.

“I never thought I was going to see you again,” she says, then slugs him in the arm. “That was a horrible thing to do! I know you were scared and sixteen, but you broke my heart, Archie Andrews.”

“If I’d stayed, I would’ve broken it anyway,” Archie says. “Trust me, I wasn’t right for you.”

Veronica smiles and rubs his arm where she smacked it. “I know. I’m glad you’re okay.”

Jughead clears his throat.

“I see you all the time,” Veronica rolls her eyes at him. “Literally three times a week. You want a cookie?”

“Actually, I’m starving.”

Veronica pushes herself onto the counter and swings her legs up and around behind it, landing lightly on the other side. She flicks a switch underneath and the window sign light goes out. “Pop’s is officially closed for non-inner circle business.”

Jughead goes over to the old jukebox in the corner and starts up an old 1950s track Archie can’t name off the top of his head, but is nevertheless catchy as hell and he sways to the music automatically.

Jughead comes back to sit across from Archie in the booth. “Can’t go wrong with the classics, right?”

“What song is this?”

“‘Teenager in Love’?” Jughead shrugs. “I just put on one of V’s playlists; it’s not a real jukebox anyway, just for show.”

“Good choice, Jug!” Veronica calls, bobbing around behind the counter to the music as she fires up the grill.

“Do you need help?”  Betty asks and Veronica nods.

“Just don’t tell the health department I’m letting you back here.”

Betty hops over the counter to join Veronica. Archie watches utterly transfixed as Betty and Veronica dance around each other, Betty on the flat top grilling burgers while Veronica supervises the fryers. They’re both laughing, beaming at each other, easy as breathing.

“How have you been?” Jughead asks in a stilted tone.

Archie draws himself away from Veronica and Betty’s whatever-the-hell-that-is and looks at Jughead, really looks, for the first time. “I’m… I’m good.”

“Yeah?” Jughead’s lips quirk up, almost a smile.

“I survived high school. Made it through college, too. I’ve got a shitty apartment and a dog and-- and a boyfriend.”

“What’s he like?”

“My dog?” Archie asks and Jughead just gives him a dubious look. Archie ducks his head. “Sorry. Um. His name’s Nate. The boyfriend, not the dog. He’s a therapist and does a bunch of nonprofit stuff. He likes bowling even though he sucks. He’s literally so bad at it, I’m kind of embarrassed to be seen with him at the bowling alley.”

Jughead laughs and Archie feels almost normal.

“I heard about your dad. I'm sorry you had to go through that.”

Jughead stiffens. “Thanks.”

“You really don’t know who did it?”

“I know exactly who did it,” Jughead says. “Can’t prove anything though so what’s the point?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’ve been in Riverdale the last decade, my dad’s dead, and I’ve been leading a gang since I was sixteen. What do you think?”

Archie opens his mouth, unsure of what he’s going to say next, at which point Veronica and Betty slide into the booth next to them. Veronica balances a tray in hand. She quickly separates out the items: Burgers all around, extra fries and onion rings on Jughead’s plate. Strawberry milkshake for Archie, vanilla for Betty, and two chocolates for Veronica and Jughead.

They clink glasses together. Veronica and Betty keep glancing at each other. Jughead stays mostly silent, but listens to the conversations intently. Veronica questions Archie and Betty on their post-Riverdale lives and they fill her in while she rattles off her own story, the fall from rich heiress to slightly-more-working-class burger joint owner after being cut off from the family funds and getting emancipated at seventeen. V’s been through the wringer, but she carries herself like nothing happened at all and Archie finds himself still loving her, albeit much differently than before.

As that conversation slips away to more mundane topics like football scores and the movies that came out last month, they forget about the trial, about the things that separated them and then brought them back together. They’re just old friends, catching up after a long time.

Archie is home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please listen to Teenager in Love and imagine Beronica dancing to it together. I went through a bunch of 50s playlists on spotify to find a song I liked for that scene and I think it's super cute.
> 
>  
> 
> also chapter 5 will be a rather angsty turn so I hope you enjoyed the fluffy reunions while they lasted.


	5. Part 2: The Inevitable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Riverdale is Riverdale and things go very, very wrong.

 

By the time they leave the diner, well after midnight, they’re laughing and chatting like old friends again. Betty and Jughead exchange a less awkward hug. Jug turns to Archie next, arms open, and Archie steps forward into it, relieved at the dissipating tension.

“It was good to see you,” Jughead says, offering a hesitant smile. “Keep me updated on the trial, how that’s all going.”

“Are you not testifying?” Archie asks.

“No one asked me,” Jughead shrugs. “It’s just as well, really, I-- I should go.”

He waves a goodbye to Veronica and crosses the parking lot back to his motorcycle. As he takes off, Veronica turns to the door and starts locking up.

“You can head out,” she says. “It’ll just be a second.”

Betty waves her off, “We can wait.”

She and Archie huddle near the door by Veronica. Betty checks her phone idly, and her expression turns to panic.

“Bets?” Archie asks. Veronica looks up from the lock, concerned.

Betty raises a finger, holding the phone up to her ear and listening. There’s a panicked voice on the other line that sounds like Alice, but Archie can’t make out any words.

“Oh god,” Betty lowers her phone and looks down at the screen again, swiping through messages.

“Betty?” Archie repeats, fumbling through his pockets for his own phone. “What’s going on? Was that your mom?”

He’d turned his phone off before they’d gone inside, in an effort to avoid letting himself run to the bathroom and panic-text Nate the whole time, but now the twenty seconds it takes to power on feel centuries long.

A notification pops up, showing a single missed call from Nate.

Betty grabs his wrist, “You don’t want to listen to that.”

“What happened?” Veronica asks.

“My mom left me like ten messages,” Betty says, her voice shaking. “Right after we left, there was… A bunch of gargoyle gang members broke into our house. Kevin and Reggie are at the ER, but they should be fine-- Mom said it was just bumps and bruises, but Nate--”

Archie opens the voicemail and lets it play on speaker.

It’s not Nate’s voice. It’s unrecognizable, run through a distortion filter that makes Archie’s blood run cold. Betty and Veronica stare at the phone in his hand, eyes wide.

“I was hoping you’d be smart enough not to come back to Riverdale, Archie. But it seems we’re going to have to persuade you to leave. The longer you’re in town, the less likely it is your boyfriend will be in one piece when you get him back. And if  _ anything _ upsets the order of this town, I can’t guarantee you’ll recognize the body when it turns up. I’m sure you’ve already been told about our break-in at the Cooper’s house, but just in case you’re doubting that we actually have him--”

There’s a muffled cry of pain, and then Nate’s voice comes through, shaking and faint, “Hey-- Hey, Archie, I love-- I love you, okay? And I know you, and you’re blaming yourself, but this isn’t your fault and you still have to--”

He voice breaks off in another pained cry and Archie drops his phone. He staggers back, bracing himself against the front of the truck, and eases down onto the pavement.

This is it.

Every bad thought, every nightmare he’s had in the past forty-eight hours comes true. He let Nate follow him here, despite everything telling him it was a bad idea, and now-- Nate’s hurt or dead or worse and if he’d never met Archie this wouldn’t have happened to him.

Betty and Veronica talk above him, something about Alice at the police station and Reggie and Kevin, but he can’t focus on them. He keeps picturing Nate. Nate’s body washed up on the shore with a bullet in his head. Nate bleeding out on a diner floor. Nate strangled with a cello bow. Nate buried alive. Nate poisoned, lips stained blue. Nate dead or dying over and over again, and it’s his fault. It’s always his fault.

“Hey, we have to go. Archie, you gotta come back to us.”

Betty and Veronica crouch on the pavement in front of him, peering at him with worried eyes.

“I can’t let him die,” Archie whispers.

“No one’s dying,” Betty says. “I can find him; I promise we’ll get him back.”

Betty and Veronica exchange a look and suddenly they’re on either side of him, lifting him to his feet. Veronica takes most of his weight and shuffles him around to the other side of the truck, pushing him up into the seat and getting him settled. She hands him his phone, the screen now a little cracked, then steps back down.

Betty sits in the driver’s seat and puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to stop by the house to get my laptop, and then we’re going to go to the hospital and check on Kevin and Reggie.”

“I’ll meet you guys there,” Veronica says.

She closes the door and Betty takes off. Archie’s certain that there’s nowhere in Riverdale where the speed is more than forty-five, but Betty’s pushing sixty. She slows down only when they reach the suburbs and pull up to the Cooper’s house.

“You don’t have to come in with me,” Betty climbs out of the car and sets off to the house. Archie stares at the door swinging off its hinges, the shattered front window. 

He needs to see it.

As he steps inside, shards of glass crunch under his shoe. Furniture lies upended across the living room and there’s a dark stain on the couch Archie can’t let himself think too much about right now.

As Archie takes in the trashed house around him, it suddenly all feels very real. Someone hurt Reggie and Kevin, trashed the house, and took Nate.

Someone.

Hiram.

Betty comes down the stairs with a black laptop bag slung over one shoulder. She motions toward the door, loops an arm through his, and guides him back out to the truck.

\---

Riverdale General’s unchanged atmosphere pulls to mind all of the hours Archie spent in the waiting room for classmates, friends, family. All the victims of Riverdale’s violence. Betty shifts uncomfortably in her chair, typing away on her laptop. Veronica sits on Archie’s other side, her hand twined through his. She offers a few updates on Reggie and Kevin, lapses into brief silence, then picks up some random topic and goes with it.

Archie’s eyes are too bleary to focus on Betty’s laptop, and he can’t pull his focus in enough to actually process Veronica’s words, but their presence comforts him nonetheless.

Kevin emerges from the back first, sporting a swollen eye and a row of stitches across his cheek. He favors one side and keeps an arm wrapped across his ribs, but he smiles when Betty jumps up to greet him with a hug.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Kevin sniffs, gesturing to the stitches. “Not like I didn’t go through worse senior year.”

“That’s fair,” Betty allows, and Veronica nods in agreement. Archie looks between the three of them questioningly,  _ What happened senior year? _ but none of them indulge his curiosity.

“Reggie and Nate took most of the fight. Reggie got knocked out cold and he’s already had a couple concussions in high school, so they’re keeping him for observation now for a few more hours.”

“Have you see him?” Veronica asks.

“He’s up and flirting with nurses.”

“Of course. I’d expect nothing less.”

“I can take you back to see him. He’s fine, really. It’s not that bad outside of the concussion. We’re both okay.” Kevin’s eyes fall on Archie, who’s been cautiously avoiding looking at him the whole time. Reluctantly, Archie nods an acknowledgement. Kevin offers him a hand up and guides the three of them back to a room where Reggie sits up in bed, looking more than a little worse for wear.

“Your boyfriend’s a badass,” is the first thing Reggie says when he sees Archie. “There were like seven guys breaking in and he definitely knocked out at least one tooth.”

Archie can’t think of a thing to say in response, his mind looping over the various horrific ways Nate could be dead or dying, but Betty steps in to handle the conversation, “I’m just glad you’re okay, Reggie.”

“After the trial, I’m never coming back here, ever,” Reggie says. “I’m done, I’m out. The only thing here is my asshole old man I was never planning to visit anyway.”

“I think we’re all on the same page there,” Kevin says. “Lock up Hiram and throw away the key.”

“I hate to rush into this,” Betty suddenly has a notepad in hand, “but I’d love to get as much info from you guys as I can now. How many people, anything recognizable? I know you’re probably going to tell the police everything, I just want to get a jump. Even if they got an indictment against Hiram, I’m not eager to trust Riverdale police to do their job.”

“There were seven of them,” Kevin says. “They were wearing gargoyle gang masks and gloves, so no real physical descriptors. Most of them were pretty tall and I think they were all guys, but I can’t say for sure.”

“Did you see what they were driving?”

“Unmarked black van. It was beat up, kind of older-looking. Pretty much classic, skeevy kidnapper vibe.”

“Okay. That’s something at least.”

“Doc says I’ll be out of here in a few hours,” Reggie says. “If you want to go home or…. Somewhere else.”

“We’ll probably get out, then,” Betty agrees.

“We can go to my dad’s; he won’t mind,” Archie offers, attracting everyone’s attention. He realizes this is the first he’s spoken since the parking lot.

After the beat of silence, Veronica jumps in. “I’ll stay here to drive Kev and Reggie back. You two can go ahead.”

\---

It’s three in the morning by the time they reach the apartment. Archie has to bang on the door a few times before it finally opens. Fred blinks at them and seems to take in the frantic state Archie’s in.

“What’s going on?” he motions for them to come inside, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

As they stumble through to the kitchen in silence, Archie finally manages to regain his the ability to speak, “Hiram got to Nate.”

Archie can’t offer anything beyond that, everything else is emotions and guilt. Fred doesn’t ask for details and just pulls Archie into a hug. Archie stands there with his arms hanging at his sides.

“Fred, do you mind if I make some coffee?” Betty asks, already pulling out coffee filters from a cabinet.

Fred nods and Betty finishes setting up the coffee pot before settling down at the kitchen table with her laptop and resuming her typing.

“What are you doing?” Archie sits down next to her, finally coherent enough to look over her shoulder. She’s got several windows of security camera footage pulled up.

“This is what I do. I’m a private investigator. Riverdale might be out of my usual wheelhouse of crazy, but I’m going to do everything I can. And I should be able to find Nate. I won’t stop until I do, I promise.”

Archie watches over Betty’s shoulder while she works, drafting emails and pulling up new footage. Every so often she’ll check her phone, send a text, and then go back to the computer. Fred brings her over her cup of coffee, which she accepts with a grateful nod.

Alice Cooper turns up about an hour after they arrived, exhausted but decidedly in one piece. She bustles her way into Fred’s kitchen, standing on tiptoes to steal a bottle of vodka from the top shelf and then pouring herself a glass.

“Alice,” Fred admonishes.

She takes a swig. “The house is a wreck.”

“Are you alright?” Archie asks.

Alice turns to him, softening. “Kevin shoved me out the back door before anything happened. I called the police, then came back to help them get to the ER. I never even saw them.”

Betty’s phone chimes with a text and she pauses to read it, then relays, “Veronica’s taking Reggie and Kevin back to Pop’s for the night. She has room for them to crash in the speakeasy. You’re welcome there too, Mom.”

Alice glances down at her vodka and shrugs.

“I’m gonna be up for a while working on this,” Betty nods to her computer. “I’m having a hard time getting a match on the van. It’s too dark to make out and I keep thinking I see something, but then it’s not there. There’s a serious lack of reliable security cameras in Riverdale.”

Archie doesn’t sleep, despite Fred and Betty’s attempts to cajole him into it. He watches over Betty’s shoulder and listens to Fred and Alice talking in hushed voices.

Veronica, Kevin, and Reggie show up a little after seven, shuffling in and yawning as they cluster into the already-cramped kitchen.

“We wound up driving around in circles all night looking for the van,” Veronica says. “There was nothing.”

“You were out looking?” Archie asks.

“I’m sorry we didn’t find anything. We tried everywhere we could think of.”

“Thank you.”

Alice, looking at her watch, pipes up, “Archie, your meeting with the prosecutors is in a few hours.”

“He’s not going to meet with the prosecutors if it’ll put a hit out on his boyfriend,” Kevin says, indignant, and Archie is relieved he doesn’t have to say it himself.

“You can’t give up testifying,” Veronica says seriously. “Our entire town is at risk. If you give in to my father, who’s to say he’ll even let Nate go? He could keep him as a hostage to pull your strings indefinitely.”

“If you turned the phone call in as evidence, he’d be locked away for sure,” Reggie says. “Tampering with a witness. Kidnapping. Blackmail.”

“They can’t prove it was him,” Kevin says. “And even if they could, Riverdale’s police force, historically-speaking, has kind of sucked. The Hiram thing feels like a fluke as it is. There’s no way they’d get to Nate in time.”

“But they could,” Veronica insists.

Archie clears his throat. “Can I think for a minute?”   
  
Silence falls immediately, everyone watching him with baited breath. He hates it all and feels compelled to run out of the apartment rather than answer the question on everyone’s mind.

“I’m not leaving Riverdale without Nate,” Archie says finally. “I won’t do it, I don’t trust Hiram to keep his end of the deal and I can’t-- I can’t leave him.”

There’s quiet murmurs of agreement.

“But I’m not meeting with the prosecutor and I won’t testify until I know he’s safe. And maybe I’m stupid and selfish, but I don’t care. I’m not going to let them hurt him.”

“There might be enough to convict, even without your testimony,” Veronica forces optimism into her voice. “And we’ll do whatever we can to find Nate, which brings me to something I hate to suggest. But I don’t see a way around it: We need to visit my father.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry.


	6. Part 2: In Which Love is Complicated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even with the current circumstances, Hiram Lodge being held in the very prison he helped create provides Archie with a measure of satisfaction.

Even with the current circumstances, Hiram Lodge being held in the very prison he helped create provides Archie with a measure of satisfaction.

Veronica loops her arm through his in a position that would almost be casual, were it not for the death grip she has on him. At first, he thinks she’s scared, but he soon realizes she’s guiding him and it’s not for her benefit at all.

“We’re here to see Hiram Lodge,” Veronica tells the front desk staff. “My father.”

The desk staff nods, picks up the phone, and murmurs into it a few moments before he sets it back down and motions for Archie and Veronica to follow him into the next room over. They’re directed to sit at one of the little booths lining the back wall of the room. Veronica picks up the phone and they wait, watching through the glass window.

A good ten minutes later, Hiram Lodge joins them on the other side of the glass. He’s barely aged a day, no signs of grey in his hair and only a few new lines around his eyes. It’s unnerving and even with the glass window separating them, Archie feels like scared sixteen year old kid again, his impulse telling him to make a run for it. Veronica's hold on his arm gets impossibly tighter, and he doesn’t entertain that idea for very long.

“I have to admit, I’m a little surprised,” Hiram says, eyeing the pair of them. “I knew Archie would be back in town for the trial, but a visit? To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Cut the bullshit. Where’d your goons take him?” Archie snaps.

“I’m sorry, who?” Hiram’s face remains neutral and Archie fantasizes about smashing through the glass and breaking his nose.

“His boyfriend,” Veronica says, interrupting Archie’s thoughts. “The one you kidnapped?”

Hiram lets out a bark of laughter, smiling at Veronica. “I _told_ you that was never going to end well, _mija_ , didn’t I? I just had a feeling,” he looks to Archie and adds, “Congratulations on coming out, I suppose.”

“Came out ten years ago, but thanks,” Archie says, dead-eyed. “Why’d you go after him? Why not go after me?”

“I didn’t do anything. I’m in here.  Don’t you think I have better things to do than order hits on someone I didn’t know existed?”

“No,” Veronica and Archie say in unison.

“I’m truly sorry this happened,” Hiram’s eyes flick to Veronica for a beat. “You must understand, whatever our differences in the past, Archie--”

“You tried to kill me.”

“--I have no interest in hurting you. What benefit would that bring me?”

“I don’t know, blackmailing me into leaving town?”

Hiram laughs. “You think you’re the only witness in this case that matters? If I wanted to stop anyone who had anything on me from testifying, I’d have to blackmail the whole town.”

“Then why--?”

“I can’t begin to imagine, Archie. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d rather not continue this back and forth.”

Hiram hangs up the phone without offering another word. Veronica and Archie watch him leave back into the prison in silence.

When they get back outside, Archie paces up and down the sidewalk, not yet ready for the drive back to Fred’s. He kicks at a pebble watches it skitter a few feet across the pavement in front of him.

“So he did it,” Veronica prompts. “We know that much at least.”

Archie looks up at her. “Was that really what we came here to find out? Because he didn’t admit shit.”

“No, he did,” Veronica says. “He kidnapped Nate and he wants you to know he did, but he can’t say it without getting caught. I’ve been playing chess games with him for a long time. He wouldn't apologize like that if he didn't do it. And he told you he was sorry while looking _me_ in the eye. He did it, but not because of the testimony. I don’t think he was lying about that. Everything he said is true; you’re not the only witness here.”

“Then why else? Because he just hates me? Revenge?"

“That part he’s not telling, which I should have known. But we know he did it and he wants you to know he did it. So that’s a start.”

“Is it?”

“It’s more than we had before.”

Veronica drops him off at Fred’s apartment. When Archie arrives back inside, everyone else has cleared out, save Fred. Betty has gone to get a change of scenery while she works, and Alice took Kevin and Reggie back to the Cooper house to help with the clean up.

Fred keeps moving about the apartment with a nervous energy, trying to keep busy while Archie sits numbly at the kitchen table.

“I hate that I can’t do anything,” Archie says. “I can’t-- I’m just sitting here. There’s nowhere to look, nothing to do.”

Fred stops his third round of dishes and drops into the chair next to Archie, wiping his soap-covered hands on the front of his jeans. “Your friends are doing everything they can. Something will turn up.”

It occurs to Archie that Fred might understand what he’s feeling better than just about anyone else, if his assumptions about FP Jones are correct, “What was this like for you?”

Fred frowns, “What do you mean?”

“When Hiram killed FP, how did you, I don’t know, cope?”

Fred gapes, mouth moving like he’s trying to form an answer. Or maybe a question. Archie realizes he just forced his dad to out himself, and even if this is a conversation just between the two of them, even if Fred knows Archie’s probably the best person to talk with about this, guilt still washes over Archie.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed anything, I just thought maybe you and FP--” God, he can’t stop fucking things up, can he? “I’m sorry, Dad.”

“No, you’re not-- FP and I--” Fred looks at Archie for a long moment and Archie can imagine the thoughts running through his head, the decades his father had to hide. Fred take a steady breath and then lets out his longest-held secret. “We were together.”

“You were happy together?” Archie asks, because even if it ended in tragedy, his dad finding happiness somewhere in this mess is important. The idea of his dad alone in that big house was something that haunted him for years after he’d gone on the run.

“Yeah,” Fred says. “We’d been off and on since high school, if you can believe it. No affairs, nothing like that, just… we kept seeming to come back together. We couldn’t tell anyone when we were in high school. We married other people and it had to stop and then we had kids to worry about. But after you left, it just didn’t seem worth pretending anymore.”

“I’m glad you were happy.”

“We were. And when he died, I didn’t cope, at first,” Fred admits. “I couldn’t believe it, it seemed like a bad dream. It took a long time, but I had people looking out for me. Alice, if you can believe it. And Veronica, too. She was always over; I think she felt guilty because of Hiram. Jug didn't ever bounce back, not really, but we didn’t talk much after it happened.”

“So it was Hiram?” Archie asks. “Jug said he knew who did it, but he didn’t give a name.”

“Yeah,” Fred says. “Probably, anyway. FP went out to the Southside, saying he was going to argue with Hiram about demolishing the White Wyrm one last time. The next thing I heard, the Wyrm burned down with him inside. Wasn’t anything left to bury.”

“Betty said he was shot.”

“That’s the official story. Witnesses said they heard shots fired before the building went up in smoke and some bullet casings were found in the rubble. I’m sure it was Hiram, but at that point-- We all gave up a long time ago, Archie. Me, FP, Jughead, most of the town. Everyone either got out or stopped fighting. No one expected Hiram to get put away, no one had tried to fight him in years. Everything that's happening now is coming out of nowhere.”

“If Nate dies…”

“You’re not there yet,” Fred says. “Don’t think about that until you have to.”

“What should I do, Dad? Leave? Testify anyway?”

“I don’t know what all evidence they’re bringing to the trial, but there’s a good dozen people being called as witnesses besides you. And most of us have been around Hiram the last ten years enough that we’ve got plenty to say.”

“So I should leave?”

“I can’t make that choice for you, son,” Fred says firmly. “But if you’re not able to take the stand, for whatever reason, it doesn’t mean Hiram just gets to walk free.”

Archie mulls this over a moment, imagining what the other witnesses could say about Hiram, how much evidence they really have stacked against him. He can’t just leave Nate, but maybe if he lays low until after the trial, maybe...

“Have you talked to Jughead about this yet?” Fred asks.

“Betty said she texted him, but he never replied,” Archie’s been trying to ignore it and it hasn’t been that hard since worrying about his boyfriend being held hostage has taken up most of his thoughts  and worrying about his childhood crush not responding to a text is kind of at the bottom of his list of priorities. Now that Fred brings it up, it does bother him and with his paranoia already on high, the thought crosses his mind that perhaps there’s a reason Jughead hasn’t replied. “Dad, what if something happened to him? If Hiram’s going after people I care about--”

“Hey, I’m sure he’s fine. His place is less than a mile from here, we can go over to check in on him.”

Archie recalls passing the trailer park at one point in his way to Fred’s and he remembers Betty mentioning Jug was there off-hand. Archie snags his phone to text Betty for the exact address and starts toward the door.

“I can drive you--”

“I’ll be good,” Archie says. “Just stay here. And lock the doors.”

Archie hears Fred protesting, but he’s already closing the door behind him.

It’s just starting to get dark outside as Archie jogs his way further into what’s left of the Southside. Outside of the string of apartment buildings, the rest of the neighborhood has been demolished. No school, no White Wyrm, nothing. A trailer park still exists, though it’s not Sunnyside Trailer Park. Everything here has a Lodge Industries stamp of approval somewhere.

Archie follows Betty’s reply text to a trailer near the back of the lot.  Archie bangs on the door, noting the tiny serpent painted beside it.

“Jughead!” Archie shouts, pounding his fist against the door again. _Please be okay, please be okay._ “Jug, it’s me!”

The door swings open and Jughead stands there, puzzled. “What the hell, dude?”

Archie throws himself at Jughead in a bear hug, pinning Jughead’s arms to his sides as he does so. He feels Jug attempting to pat his arm despite the limited mobility.

“What’s going on? Are you okay?”

Archie lets go, still relieved. “You weren’t answering Betty’s texts and Hiram took Nate. I thought maybe he got you too.”

“Hiram _what_?” Jughead’s eyes widen.

“While we were at Pop’s last night, ghoulies broke into Betty’s house. They attacked Kevin and Reggie and took off with Nate. And then I got a ransom note, telling me to leave town or they’d hurt him.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Betty’s trying to find him, but if she can’t--” a new thought occurs to Archie. “Do you think the serpents could help?”

Jughead shakes his head. “The Serpents have their hands full right now, trust me. Keeping the peace during the trial is an undertaking. We don’t have the people to spare to--”

“This is _me_ we’re talking about, Jug. I’m not asking someone to hold my hand while crossing the street, I’m asking you to help me find my boyfriend before Hiram has him killed.”

“Why’d you have to bring him here?” Jughead asks, a strange sort of sadness in his voice. 

“I didn’t want to,” Archie says. “I know I shouldn’t have, but he wanted to help and I thought-- I didn’t think. I gave in too easily.”  
  
Jughead rubs his eyes. Archie can’t read his expression. The man in front of him is a stranger, so little left of the nerdy seventeen year old he kissed goodbye. “God, Archie, I don’t have the energy to bullshit with you right now. Hiram’s got his hooks in half the town and being on the edge of getting locked up throws everything into chaos. No one knows where the chips are falling yet, so no one’s going to risk crossing Hiram to help you.”

“Forget the Serpents then. What about you?”

Jughead doesn’t meet his gaze.

“ _You’re_ afraid to cross Hiram Lodge?” Archie almost laughs. “What happened to you?”

“Everything is so much more complicated than you know. I don’t have any way to help you,” Jughead says. “There’s no secret insider Riverdale information I can give you. Betty and Veronica are your best bet, not me.”

Archie backs away from the trailer, shaking his head. He wants to say something else, something could convince Jughead to change his mind, but Jughead is so closed off he can’t begin to imagine what that could be.

Another part of him wants to say something hurtful, but he can’t bring himself to do that either.

\---

“How are you holding up?” Fred rests a hand on Archie’s shoulder, catching Archie in the middle of dozing off.

“It’s not real. It’s… it’s like a nightmare. I brought him here, Dad. And now he’s--”

Archie lets out a strangled sort of sob he didn’t anticipate. The guilt, the possibility of Riverdale taking everything from him again is too much. Even if Nate lives through this, even if they both make it out, nothing will be the same. It can’t be.

Fred keeps talking to him, trying to calm him down, but he can’t focus enough over the sound of his own hysterics.

“If he dies, it’s my fault, Dad. I brought him here and he got hurt and I knew that would happen. I knew it and let him come with me anyway because I didn’t want to be alone. I’m so stupid. _I’m so_ _stupid_.”

“You’re not stupid. This isn’t your fault,” Fred tries to console him, but Archie’s a million miles away..

His phone chimes, distracting him for a moment. He sniffs, wiping the tears from his eyes and gets up to check it, hoping Betty found something.

Instead, it’s a text from an unknown number.

“It’s from Betty,” Archie says. “I’m gonna talk to her in the hall.”

Fred doesn’t react to the lie and Archie steps into the hall, pulling up the text.

It’s a video file. The thumbnail makes his stomach drop to his toes, but he forces himself to press play.

It’s a strange, brightly lit room that Archie doesn’t recognize.

Nate is beat to hell, much worse than Reggie or Kevin. His eyes are unfocused and glassy. Blood mats his hair and cakes onto the side of his face. There’s a strip of duct tape over his mouth and his wrists are zip-tied to either arm of a chair.

Nate raises his head a little as the distorted voice begins to speak over the footage. “You were offered a fair deal, but you didn’t take it. Leaving isn’t going to be enough now. How about a trade?”  
  
Nate starts struggling, frantic, rocking the chair. A figure enters the frame and slams his fist into Nate’s stomach. Nate doubles over as far as the zip ties will let him, breathing heavily.

“Meet us in front of the Pembrooke Apartments and we’ll let him go. Come any time in the next twenty four hours; we’ll be waiting.”

Archie starts walking. He sends a text to his dad saying he’s going over to the Coopers, which he technically is. He makes the endless walk across town, focused on exactly what he needs to do. As he walks into the house and through the living room, he sees Betty sitting on the floor,  two laptops open before her and her phone to her ear. Veronica watches over her shoulder,texting with her own phone clasped in hand.

“Yeah, I just need the footage from ten to ten-thirty,” Betty says, tone unlike anything Archie’s heard from her before, formal and confident. “Thank you… Yes, that’s the right address… Yes, thank you...”

He slips past her and up to her old bedroom. It’s untouched from the previous night’s events. He starts throwing Nate’s belongings back into their suitcases.

Nate’s phone is still charging on the dresser. Archie starts to add it to the suitcase, and notes the three missed calls, from his mom and sisters.

Archie grabs a piece of paper and pen and starts writing letters, short and mostly apologies and half-assed explanations. But they’re something. One for his dad, one for Betty, and one for Nate. Even if he manages to save Nate’s life, he’s sure he’ll never get to talk to him again and that’s a reality he’s going to have to face. In Betty’s, he adds a short plea for her to get him the hell out of town as soon as possible.

He slides Nate’s letter into the front pocket of the suitcase along with his phone and he sets the other two on the dresser.

Archie knew what he was going to do the moment he listened to that first voicemail in the parking lot at Pop’s, as much as he tried to convince himself he could hold off and make the morally righteous choice. The truth of it is, he’s not a good person. He’s stupid and selfish and not strong enough to trade someone he loves for something that would make a whole town better. He can’t and won’t and that’s how it was always going to go down.

Archie slips downstairs, full intending to sneak out without a word, but when he sees Betty’s laptops lying haphazardly on the floor, he stops dead. He rounds the corner, ready to start throwing punches or expecting the worse and--

Veronica is pinned underneath Betty on the floor, their limbs tangled up together as Betty kisses her way up Veronica’s neck.

“Oh!” Betty bolts upright, climbing off Veronica and flushing, “Oh my god, I am so sorry. I didn’t even know you were here.”

Veronica slowly rolls onto her side and props her head up with one hand, peering up at Archie without a shred of embarrassment.

“No, no, you’re… fine. It’s your house,” Archie shifts his weight from one foot to the other, folds his arms across his chest and then unfolds them. “I was just going to head out for a bit. See what I can track down.”

“Do you want some company?” Veronica asks.

“No, you two can keep-- You should stay here,” Archie grabs his jacket and starts toward the front door. “Congrats, by the way.”

He closes the front door behind him, almost managing to smile. He can’t really hold that against them. If the hellish past few days are any indication, love is terrifyingly fragile. Somehow, something Veronica once said to him springs to mind:  _They’re each other’s soulmates. Good for them, don’t you think?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm BACK. ive actually had this chapter and chapter 7 finished forever but i was holding off on posting because i wasn't sure when i was going to get back into riverdale fully but. i've got FULL intent to finish this so. stay tuned for more.


	7. Part 2: The Trade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> uhhhh sorry

The Pembrooke apartments carry the age of the last decade with them. The plants out front are shriveled and yellow. A spider-web of cracks decorates one window, while the bars on the other have rusted, as have the once-gold street numbers and sign.

Archie walks up the steps, hands in his pockets, and waits. He remembers waltzing into the building as a teenager, confident and mostly unaffected about chatting with Hiram Lodge, like there would never be consequences for meeting with a mobster, like he could back out any time he wanted.

He expects an unmarked van, but instead a sleek black sedan pulls up. The backseat door opens. Archie takes a breath and steps forward. Inside, a man with a ski mask levels a gun at him. He balks at that, remembers vaguely the last few times he'd had a gun pointed at him in Riverdale, none of them good memories. He keeps his hands visible at his sides, gets into the car, and shuts the door behind him.  Ski Mask lowers his gun and catches hold of Archie’s arm, locking a handcuff over his wrist. He reaches for his other arm and Archie offers it without resistance, which earns a snort from Ski Mask.

“You’re making this too easy, kid.”

Archie stays quiet.

Ski Mask pulls a bandanna out from his pocket and brings it up to Archie’s eyes, blocking out his vision and then knotting it tighter than comfortable behind Archie’s head.

“Okay, we’re ready. Let’s get back.”

Archie’s heart thumps in his chest as the car starts moving. The whole thing seems over the top, but it makes sense. They can’t know his surrender is genuine, they can’t trust him not to have a contingency plan and escape and report them to the police. But he doesn’t even try to keep track of the turns or how long the drive takes. He has no illusions of coming back from this; he’s going to get Nate out and after that they can do whatever they want to him. He’s been running from this for long enough.

The car stops, the door opens, and someone manhandles Archie out of the car. He's prodded forward and he trips up a set of steps, a steadying hand on his shoulder the only thing that keeps him from face-planting

The lighting changes and the temperature goes down a tad. The door slamming shut behind him confirms his suspicions that they’ve moved indoors.

Someone yanks the blindfold off and after a moment of adjusting to the light, he recognizes the room from the video of Nate. Wood floor, brightly lit, plain. There’s the door behind him and two other doors on the sides of the room. No windows, no furniture, and, most importantly, no sign of Nate. The only other people in the room are the four masked figures staring him down.

“Where is he?” Archie asks.

The tallest of the four nods to another one of the men and he steps forward to open one of the side doors.

This room is much smaller, much darker, and the ceiling is mere inches above Archie’s head. Nate sits on the floor, leaned up against the back wall and spaced out. He shifts up along the wall when the door opens and his eyes widen in a mix of confusion and relief when he sees Archie.

Archie bolts forward and skids to his knees in front of Nate. He looks him over, scanning for injuries, for any sign of serious harm, for anything--

Nate catches Archie’s shoulder and pulls him forward into a kiss. Archie can’t hold Nate with his wrists handcuffed and his arms press into his stomach between them, but it’s the very last of his worries.

“You’re okay,” Archie murmurs, unsure if he’s comforting Nate or himself. “You’re okay.”

“What are you doing here?” Nate peers over Archie’s shoulder at Hiram’s gang.

“Everything’s going to be okay.”

Nate grabs Archie’s face and forces Archie to look at him, “What did you do?”

“They’re going to let you go,” Archie says. “You have to go back home. Don’t even-- Don’t think about me, please. Just get out of Riverdale. Get a ride to the airport, don’t ever come back.”

“No,” Nate shakes his head. “No, no, Archie, you’re not going to do this. We’re not doing this.”

One of the gargoyles grabs hold of Nate’s shirt, pulling him up and away from Archie. Archie’s chest heaves as he forces himself to not move, even as Nate grasps for him.

“I’m sorry,” Archie calls out.

Nate elbows the gargoyle holding him in the gut, hard enough that he doubles over. Archie staggers up to his feet, mind racing. He can’t fight hand-cuffed, their odds are so bad, this isn’t what he  _ wanted, _ if Nate gets hurt trying to save them--

Nate launches himself at the taller gargoyle, bowling him over until they both hit the ground and then Nate’s fists are flying.

“Nate stop!” Archie shouts, moving toward Nate, only for someone to grab onto him, a hand locking around his throat.

Nate tears the mask off the gargoyle he has pinned.  At first, nothing changes. Archie’s struggling to get loose and focused on Nate, who now has the other two gargoyles on top of him, wrenching him backward. Nate struggles, keeps throwing wild punches, and it’s two on one and Nate’s still on the floor. Archie digs his nails into the hand around his throat, scratching hard enough he can feel skin break, is sure there’s blood under his nails now. The hand lets go and Archie lurches forward and locks eyes with the now-unmasked face of the gargoyle leader.

It doesn’t make sense.  Why is he here? He can’t be here, Archie can’t lose another person. Unless this is part of a rescue plan? But no, he would’ve known. Someone would’ve told him.  _ It doesn’t make sense. _

Archie can’t move. He can’t tear his eyes away Jughead.

“Stand down,” Jughead says, breathless, but he isn’t talking to Archie or to Nate, he’s talking to the masked men looming over them. They listen, stepping back, lowering their weapons.

That can’t be--

Jughead can’t--

“I’m sorry,” Jughead says

And Archie lets the most obvious conclusion fall into place: Jughead is part of this.  His brain spins out and he can’t move on from the blinding, all-consuming thought that this is  _ Jughead _ , wearing a gargoyle mask and working for Hiram Lodge.

Nate is under no such confusion and throws himself at the nearest masked mobster. There’s three of them to his weakened and unarmed one, but he’s putting his all into the fight anyway. One of them lands a hard blow to the side of Nate’s head and he goes down, at which point Archie snaps and charges forward, landing a few blows despite his hands still being locked together before someone drags him backward.  He hears Jughead in his ear, “Stop! Archie, stop!” and  Archie whips around, lashing out without thinking and his fist connects with Jughead’s cheekbone.

Jughead staggers and Archie freezes up again, still unable to believe what’s happening. 

Something slams into his back, hard, in just the right spot, and the pain and shock of it overwhelms him. He hits the floor and lies dazed until someone drags him upright. Someone is on each side of him, his arms thrown over their shoulders, his feet jostling against the stairs as they descend. By the time he’s fully aware, he’s seated in a chair in the basement, his wrists cuffed behind him. The other, still-masked gargoyles are clearing out of the room, leaving Archie alone with Jughead

“Where’s Nate?” Archie snaps.

“He’s fine,” Jug shuffles his feet forward, looking down at the ground. “I promise. I wasn’t going to let them kill him. That was never-- I would never--”

“Why should I believe you? You-- You blackmailed me and you held my boyfriend hostage.”

“To try and get you out of Riverdale!” Jughead looks up now and his gaze fixes on Archie. “To get you both out of Riverdale! That's all Hiram wanted and the second you landed back west, I would’ve made sure he was on the next flight out to you.”

“You’re working with Hiram Lodge,” Archie laughs. It sounds so ridiculous. “I don’t get it. Was it the money? The power? What the fuck made you turn on your own town?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“You know what? I don’t care, kill me. Let’s get this over with.”

“No one’s going to kill you. Jesus, Archie. Do you really think I could--?” There’s genuine hurt in Jughead’s eyes.

“It’s been ten years. Clearly a lot’s changed.”

“I didn’t sign up with Hiram  _ for fun _ . Or money or power or anything like that. You know me better than that.”

“Do I?”

Jughead looks hurt again and Archie wants to dig in deeper, but Jughead continues, “You also know how he good he is at manipulating everyone into a corner. The original gargoyle gang was small, but Hiram sent them to rough up our friends, our families. At first we held off, tried to defend ourselves, but Hiram had money and people in the right places. Fangs’ mom died after she’d been getting  better . He’d paid off a nurse or a doctor to--” Jughead stops, looking down, lost in some memory. “And then Toni was laid up for two weeks after the gargoyles got the jump on her. The cops weren’t doing shit since they were all under the Lodges’ payroll. We didn’t have any other option except giving up, but the thing is, _ I wasn’t going to. _ Even after Cheryl begged me, after everyone voted that it was the only thing to do, I was fine going out in a blaze of glory.”

Archie can’t look at him. He can’t rationalize his way out of this, there’s nothing he could say that could justify any of this. There had to have been another option, even with Toni, with Fang's mom...

“I met with Hiram, just to see what he wanted from us. Thought I could figure out the game and maybe a way to beat it, but that’s when he gave me ‘an offer I couldn’t refuse,’” Jughead laughs humorlessly.

“Bullshit. What could be--?”

“He knew where you were, Arch.”

It hits hard, but it can’t be real. No. No, they’d gotten away. He hadn’t attracted any attention to himself, hadn’t gone by Archie Andrews in years. It was fake, it was--

“I didn’t believe him either,” Jughead says, voice small and strained, “but he had pictures of you, walking to classes, getting dinner with friends, and-- So I did what he said and you kept breathing.”

He’d never been safe. He’d never gotten away and the life he’d built for himself out of Hiram’s grasp had never been more than an illusion of safety. And Jughead had betrayed the town so he could have that life.

“He killed my dad,” Jughead says it like it’s a confession, “I tried to get us all out a few years ago, had a journalist ready to spill the story, thought I had everyone protected, but I didn’t-- I was an idiot and my dad’s dead. So yeah, Hiram says jump and I ask how high.”

“What now?” Archie manages. “Kill me to keep me safe? Lock me up somewhere until after the trial?”

“No,” Jughead seems to be talking more to himself as he shuffles across the room, disappearing from sight behind Archie. I can’t-- do that. I can’t, I’m done.”

“What the hell does that mean?”  Archie tenses until he hears a lock click open. His handcuffs clatter to the floor and stretches his arms, bringing them around front and rubbing his wrists.

“I’m just going to have to do something incredibly stupid that’ll get all of us killed, probably,” 

Jughead comes back around and starts heading towards the stairs. He pauses and picks up a baseball bat leaning up against a wall and holds it out to Archie.

Archie just stares, dumbfounded. “He could still kill people.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t live with you looking at me like that again.”

“Jug--”

Jughead sets the bat down and moves over to Archie, leaning in close. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t have another choice but I should have found one. I forgot--”

Archie hugs him and he can feel Jughead shaking, his fingers scrunching into Archie’s shirt. Then Jughead pulls away, eyes locked on his, “Sorry, I--”

His hands move up, cautiously, on either side of Archie’s face, thumbs brushing over Archie’s cheeks. Archie feels a strange tension mixing in his stomach, equal parts excitement and alarm. Jug leans in, slowly, and Archie’s not stopping him. Maybe he should, maybe this is the absolute worst time and the worst place, but he doesn’t say that. He waits, and as their lips meet, he lets his eyes close.

Jughead is so careful, so hesitant. His lips barely move over Archie’s and he’s still shaking as he cups Archie’s face. Archie starts to move his hands up on top of Jughead’s hands, wants to hold him steady, but Jughead pulls away altogether at Archie’s touch, unable to meet his eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” Jughead mutters.

Archie can’t think of anything good to reply with. There aren’t words. It can’t be _ I’m sorry too  _ anymore than it can be _ Don’t apologize.  _ It just is.


End file.
